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Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "Senator McCain decried Tea Party 'Hobbits' on Wednesday for their failure to support the GOP's debt deal, at times reading from a WSJ editorial that began the analogy. The Tea Party fired back, with a prominent member noting on CNN that McCain had been corrupted by the ring of power. The full text of his floor remarks should be in the Congressional Record later today."

If you love water so much, why not move to the middle of the Atlantic?

The problem is not government in general. The problem is TOO MUCH government, and too much CENTRALIZED government. You have much more power influencing your local and state government than you will ever have trying to influence the federal government. This should be obvious when you consider that 48/50 US Senators don't care about you or your state.

If we had more local control over our lives, your argument would carry much more weight. You could say, "If you hate government so much, move to Mississippi. Seriously." and you would know that the person you are talking to could truly move to Mississippi. Of course, if they are already in MS, you could tell them to keep their noses out of your state's business.

It's all clearly explained in the 10'th Amendment. Unfortunately, all three branches of our government seem to ignore it, even though they've all taken an oath to defend it. Clearly, the 10th Amendment means SOMETHING. I mean, the founders wouldn't have put in there for nothing. It's not like they had nine amendments and said, "Let's make up one more to make in an even 10."

I'm not convinced that it is the quantity of government, but rather its specific content. The government is doing things that it should not, and not doing things that it should. Reducing the size of government might reduce the number of things it is doing that it should not, but I assure you the other side of this imbalance will only get worse, because the government will likely also stop doing several things that it should be doing.

I agree with ArcherB; when people complain government is too big, immediately people jump into Washington Monument Syndrome and claim that shrinking government will take away the really valuable things that most people want... but more than that, it conflates different kinds of tax revenues and where and how they are collected and what they are used for.

If you take a look at the huge debate going on in Washington right now, you don't hear people complaining about gasoline taxes - which is what is supposed t

Number 1, just moving taxes to the state level (or even the county/city level) is not going to fix the budget problem. It just means someone else is responsible for it. Number 2, a significant number of states manage to have a balanced budget only because of help from the federal government for infrastructure, health care, education and security. Increasing their budgets while reducing their revenue is going to make the problem worse. Number 3, there is the impl

The grandparent was referring to Somalia being in what we in the US consider a state of anarchy, but in fact most of the country has fallen under traditional tribal leadership and obeys tribal law for their various tribes and the central government has dissolved. No tribal leader has the influence or power to take control of the central government, so there is no central government, which has led to some areas being in a state of lawlessness. In some ways that is not necessarily a bad thing, because depending on who is in power, it could be a very oppressive dictatorship (think Taliban).

As for the 10th amendment, it is and pretty much always has been filigree with little substance - States are considered subordinate to federal law in all cases, which is understandable in some ways - for example, the South could potentially still have slavery if it weren't for the government stepping in. Before you argue that slaves are human and should therefore have rights under the constitution, remember that up until the end of the civil war slaves were considered more like an animal than a human (by the South).

Well, that is what happens when you kill the government, isn't it? Reverting to tribalism or feudalism. The secret hope of right-leaning anarchists is simply that they would come out on top and fill the local warlord position. The secret hope of left-leaning anarchists, on the other hand, is so utopic, that you gotta view Marx as a stone-cold realist in comparison.

All power to the Counties! All power to the Cities! All power to the neighborhoods!

What is the deal with States, that they're so awesome? Maybe it's because I live in Oklahoma at the moment, but I'm just not seeing it. When we talk about mobility, you have to remember that the reason it's relatively (not absolutely, by a long shot) easy to pick up and move between states is that there's a certain amount of standardization provided by the federal government. Even something as simple as "states must recognize

States' rights sound awesome, but what would you *do* with that power and granularity, that can't or shouldn't be done at a higher or lower level?

Well, whatever you want. Your state could legalize marijuana. Your state could legalize gay marriage. Your state could ban abortion. Really, it's whatever your state wanted to do.

However, you are correct that their are limits. Part of the 10th Amendment states that duties of the federal government are the fed's job, not the states. Coining money, for example is a federal job. States may not coin their own money. Also, states may not violate Constitutional rights. For example, an Oklahoma policeman

Why is it that all of a sudden reducing government (which has only grown over the years) is tantamount to becoming anarchy? Some nutjobs do believe in almost no government, most of us believe in a weaker federal government because what people in California want doesn't matter to people in Ohio, and what people in Ohio want doesn't matter to people in Florida. Example: Federal law has it that we can't use marijuana for medicinal purposes. California is in violation of that law, but most Californians don't care, and a lot of people outside of California would like to move there specifically for that. Wouldn't it make sense that people outside of California not have a say in what happens in California? This kind of bullshit happens all the time. It's about granularity. Small democracies work way, way better than big ones. It makes no sense to have the biggest, most diverse, least related group of voters doing the most powerful governing.

The federal government, as the least representative government of any specific person does a whole hell of a lot it was never intended to do. It's not a matter if government should do it, it's a matter of if a government so far removed should do it. If every single person in Montana wanted to opt out of Social Security in favor of their own locally run version, where do the assholes in the rest of the states get off telling them how to run their lives? If you want to be a dictator to the minority, instead of respect differences of opinion, maybe you should leave. Your ideas of how the government should be run are further out of touch with our laws than small government fans. You obviously don't have the support to change the laws or the constitution would have been ammended to make a lot of these illegal, overreaching programs legal, so you get out. There is nothing stopping any state from implementing any of the federal programs for themselves, they just want to impose it on everybody else whether they agree to it or not so they can get the benefit of other state's resources. That is the evil of strong central government, that is the purpose of the electoral college, and that is why changes to the constitution require more than a simple majority. But you can get around all of that by simply ignoring the constitution, and that's what we as a country have done. Somehow the people that don't support it want to send us back to a third world country? No, not at all. But I guess it's easier for you to cover your ears and scream than to challenge your own beliefs.

People originally wanted to escape the corruption, massive taxes, distant and uncaring government, and miles of paperwork and red tape that existed in Europe. We have become that which we fought so hard against.

Except that there is no place to escape to any more. I'm not trying to be fatalistic, so much as if there was a solution that easy, half of the people in the World would be trying to take advantage of it as well. So we have to start cleaning it up. And grabbing back po

What are you basing this on? In the 19th century the USA wasn't a super power and wasn't doing all that well with pretty much slave labor camps otherwise known as textile mills just to get started. In the 20th century we became a super power due to massive infrastructure investments giving us our highway system and DARPA helped us build the Internet as we know it today. Sorry, government played a huge part in all of that. Everything from establishing minimal wage to setting fire codes help improve the way of life of every American and not just the robber barrens of the 19th century.

I don't see anyone leaving this country because they feel the government is too oppressive, if they did I'm not sure where they would go since Europe has a lot of the same policies, Asia is even tighter on freedom of expression and Africa is filled with strike. I guess that leaves Australia? While full of nice people and hot aussie chicks, they too have been spying on their citizens and doing the same things as our government including failed regulation leading to a massive oil spill off of their shores. So I guess that leaves Antarctica? Of course there are our dear friends to the north but Canada has its problems too, the grass is always greener on the other side. So I guess I have trouble picturing what a freer nation is. There aren't many nations out there where you will pay less in taxes, usually twice as much and don't forget the artificially low cost of gas here.

The reason USA became the wealthiest country in the world in 19 century was capitalist free market and industrialization, which only became possible because the US was so free to do business in because the government was so limited, so small and so insignificant.

My, you are persistent. No, the reason that the US became the wealthiest country in the world is that it was able to harness enormous amounts of cheap resources without much interference by neighboring countries nor effective resistance by the native populations. The resources of the Western US (and various marine bodies) untapped (except by the locals who were rather quickly marginalized).

This behavior also had a number of deleterious effects - raping of resources, the environment (would you want to live in a 19th century urban environment?) and impressive social inequities.

So, government did step in and attempt to mitigate the hellbent robber baron / beggar they neighbor system. It was partially successful. Yes, we have problems that stem from going the other way - to much regulation, too much governmental control. But your slavish devotion to an anachronistic and time limited system (not much of the West available for plunder at bargain prices) suggests you really haven't looked at some of the finer points in American history.

Great Depression is your answer to what? Because Great Depression was created by the Fed, who monetized UK debt (yeah, English debt). Fed was printing obscene amounts of greenbacks and buying UK debt to prevent UK from defaulting (sort of like Germany is doing with Greece).

The 1921 saw a depression that had higher unemployment than what is observed today, but by 1923 that depression was over. The difference? Government spending was cut by 70%.

In an oxygen-rich environment, the LEL is lower, the UEL is higher, and the autoignition temperature is lower. The flash point does not change.

Flash point is the temperature at which a flammable liquid (at STP) releases a flammable vapor (Wikipedia says "the lowest temperature at which [a volatile liquid] can vaporize to form an ignitable mixture in air").

Unfortunately, the argument that the current federal government should be cut to 1% of its current size amounts to exactly that - no federal government. Heck, it wouldn't even be able to fund the various military branches at that level. Heck, $40 Billion won't even fund NASA and the Department of Justice. You'll fund a bit of administration, a couple of foreign embassies and a small army that is less than 1/10 of what it is now (just going by budget figures). Furthermore, lack of a central authority will re

This is one of those forwards that your crazy uncle sends you all the time. Unlike "Lets not buy gas on 9/11", this one actually makes a bit of sense.-1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. [You are paid X for being in 'full session'. If you show up to 50% of sessions, you get 50% pay.]

They've been doing this since the 80's. Not sure if I see the point in having Congressmen who paid into the previous system get switched at this late date; it disrupts predictability (people planned for their retirement according to assumptions that you'd now retroactively upset), and many of them are probably retired from Congress already, so it's not as though this can be used to pressure them into doing anything to help everyone who pays into Social Security out of self interest.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

Social Security has long ago been reduced to a line on paper. Our Government currently cooks the books and manipulates the fund to make it appear as if it's not broke. Also, Social Security was never envisioned by our Founding Fathers, and knowing their disdain for Rome and its history of corruption, I doubt if they would have ever have voted for it. (the fall of Rome can be attributed to the same pattern of social and military over-spending and lack of leadership)

There are some things that we need that you cannot trust the individuals to properly fund... Most of us doesn't really understand how expensive stuff is or why it is so expensive, and just assume that someone is ripping us off.If you want the government to run a lot cheaper, be prepared for a very scary government where corruption is very common. A lot of the government funded money goes into making sure that it isn't abused. Managers on top of managers all making sure each other isn't abusing their own p

If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.

And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.

No. It would not, unless, of course, you have some facts to back up this remarkable assertion. No? Didn't think so. Please stop parroting stuff you've heard parroted by various Fox News personalities. Simplistic "solutions" like this sound attractive until one spends more than ten seconds thinking about them. Then their absurdity becomes obvious. And no, I don't mean fiscal responsibility is absurd. I mean that it's absurd to suggest that the government we want can operate on a tiny fraction of it's current revenue. Not even close. So this suggestion, one that is near and dear to Tea Bagger hearts everywhere, is nothing but an absurd distraction from the critical process of meaningful reform, reform that actually has a chance of solving the very real problems we are facing. It is the folly of indulging this absurd distraction that Senator McCain refers to, and (I can't believe I'm saying this...), he's absolutely right.

Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Remember back during the health care debate when the nice old lady stood up to President Obama to say something along the lines of "I hate socialized medicine and don't touch my Medicare?"

I don't think people are stupid, but much like with technology they often lack the bandwidth in their daily lives to learn as much about politics as they probably should. People want more responsible government, and smaller government until they see how it's going to affect them personally. Everyone's happy with the idea that we should cut "stuff" out of the budget, but when the "stuff" gets personalized to "My Medicare", "My defense industry job", "My road project in my town" or whatever the happy starts to wane. Then you start hearing the "Well don't cut stuff like that, cut stuff like funding for research on the affects of cow methane on the local owl population (or pick your ridiculous government project of choice)" crowd starts up; blithely ignoring that fact that a) some of that research actually is valuable, just not in obvious ways, and b) it represents a really small portion of the federal budget.

We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it. I'm not saying we should move to the European model of 40% taxes (yes, I pulled this number out of my butt, your European taxes may be higher or lower than this figure), but we can easily balance the budget with some prudent and moderate cuts to spending, along with very modest tax increases to say, where they were just 10 years ago. I know that real "small government" people like you probably understand the cuts that would be needed for true "small government", I'm not saying that you don't full understand your position. I'm saying that if most people truly understood what it meant to cut government this way, far fewer of them would support the idea.

The "lowest taxes in the developed world" isn't quite true when you take into account state and local taxes.

However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the states have more power, state elections will be even more contested, and better representation will result.

Social Security should probably be in the federal realm, since plenty of people move after retiring (and thus there's an imbalance of retirees). Medicare/Medicaid is already 50% funded by the states. If individual states really need help with Medicare costs then we can implement a "transfer" similar to the system used in Canada.

Defense spending certainly does need to be cut. Britain ruled half the world with 125,000 troops. We've got 1.4 million active troops. However, the time would be best spent finding a few large defense projects that can be cut for quick savings, and leaving the rest to an independent committee.

The Social Security wage base should be removed, so that it applies to all wages, not just the first $100K.

My bet is that if all that was done, overall taxes would still go up, but federal taxes might actually go down. Some laws would also change, without the threat of losing federal funding, states might be less willing to implement federal programs (e.g. drinking age at 21, abstinence-only education, etc.)

Federal road tax shouldn't exist either. There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.

Direct Payment and Grants to the states total $2 trillion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_spending_by_state.php?year=2010&chart=Z0&units=b&rank=t

McCain is a moderate republican. We don't have many of those out there any more... What happened in the last election was during the primaries he had to seem like he was far right, after he did that he failed to move to the center very well. Oboma had the advantage of being after Bush, If Donald Duck won the Democratic primaries he probably would have been president, and he made the shift from Far Left to Center very gracefully.

We have a hole society who thinks that Moderates are week minded. They are not, they can hold strong to their convictions however they are not stupidly just holding onto Redirect and take each issue as it comes up. We need to demand more moderates, but the ext reams on both sides have us believe if we elect a moderate the ideals of the party will be compromised away, which isn't true.

The Tea Party aren't Hobbits by any stretch of the imagination - hobbits are more like 1970's back-to-the-land hippie organic farmer types.

No, the Tea Party seems to be much more like the Easterlings, who's society has been thoroughly corrupted by promises of power regardless of the decency or lack thereof of the individual members. And Obama seems to be playing the role of Denethor, trying to hold back the tide but not really being able to do so and kinda ambiguous about where he's loyalties really lie.

Disagree. In Tolkien's narrative the Hobbits were clearly an analog for simple English villagers that he grew up around. They want to live life without the bother of the ambitious and the power hungry. The Tea Party are those same simple folk, transplanted into our modern era, who have reluctantly decided to get involved. A few years back they were being denigrated as the inhabitants of "flyover states". Nobody cared about them and they didn't matter, until they decided to get involved and upset the status quo. Because both parties represent two faces of the same shit mountain. Choosing between Democrat and Republican is like choosing between Saruman and Sauron.

The Sauron and Saruman presidential bid provided this country with the strong leadership it needed, backed with wisdom and experience. The Gandalf, Aragorn bid gave us a man on his last legs hitched to an unknown forest ranger from a state not even contiguous with the rest of Gondor!

Now, it's true that the Denethor administration left the country in a terrible way, in considerable debt, fighting losing wars on two fronts, and many were uncomfortable with the presidents stance on religious issues, especially funeral rituals. But that is no reason for people to turn away from strong leadership and a prosperous future, in favour of weed smoking, sound-bites about all the free peoples of Middle Earth, most of whom the majority of Gondorian's don't even know exist outside of legends!

I remind the house that in Mordorian society, there are no taxes, and no unnecessary labour or environmental protection, and all that is needed to succeed is drive, ambition, and a phalanx of orc mercenaries. The Sauruman bid allows us to partake in this forward looking society, abandon the failed liberal policies of Eldarianism, and return Gondor to the glories of its manifest destiny, as it was in the days of Ar-Pharazon!

Therefore, I urge citizen to cooperate with the new regime and offer up their young as orc feed as eagerly as I would offer up my own. Thank you, and God Bless Gondor.

I think claim is that while the Tea Party see themselves as hobbits, the reality of modern politics and finance does not lend itself to fairy tale endings no matter how much the "hobbits" believe their righteous cause and unwillingness to compromise will prove themselves reluctant heroes. The Wall Street Journal was in fact claiming that they were clueless to reality and will greatly harm the Tea Party and Republican cause.

You gotta be fucking kidding me. There is nothing simple, wholesome, grassroots, or legitimate about any teaparty candidate. It's an image that's been sold to you and nothing else. These people did not "decide to get involved" there were handpicked by rich conservative interests to front for extreme pro-business and pro-wealthy agenda.

Recent effective uncapping of campaign contributions let private investors buy elections with unrelenting media saturation. You just don't care to question where the money came from. Nobody has ever been to a teaparty fundraiser.

Their voting record reveals the truth. Complete lockstep, unwavering synchronization. Zero deviation among the ranks of a group of people that are supposed to be 'grassroots', 'mavericks', and 'fiercely independent'. They're employees, not politicians.

It was a sarcastic remark - he was quoting the Wall Street Journal who was saying that the Tea Party rather simplistically see themselves as being heroic good little hobbits out to vanquish the obviously evil Mordor without regard to reality. Basically, the Wall Street Journal was saying the Tea Party worldview was rather fucked up, and McCain was emphasizing this.

According to the WSJ, their view in this instance seems to be that if they shut-down government and cause the US to go into default, that somehow everyone in the country will place all of the blame upon Obama while seeing the Tea Party as heroes, and that this miracle of somehow the general public placing all the blame on Obama will be outweigh the damages in the long run caused by the default and lowering of the US's ratings because the Tea Party would then have free reign to enact all the financial polici

The Tea Party aren't Hobbits by any stretch of the imagination - hobbits are more like 1970's back-to-the-land hippie organic farmer types.

No, the Tea Party seems to be much more like the Easterlings, who's society has been thoroughly corrupted by promises of power regardless of the decency or lack thereof of the individual members. And Obama seems to be playing the role of Denethor, trying to hold back the tide but not really being able to do so and kinda ambiguous about where he's loyalties really lie.

The TEA Party wants LESS government power, not more. Think of them as "Fiscal Libertarians".

So, if they are corrupt, as you say, wouldn't that means they want MORE government power? I think you got it backwards.

you, sir, have shown me an entirely new level of disrespect for the concept of communication.

If we had respect for the concept of communication, we'd all be speaking dialects of Quenya [wikipedia.org]. But alas, men have made up thousands of mutually unintelligible languages in which to communicate. So when someone makes an error in what might not be one's native language, please don't use such tone when pointing it out.

So the guys asking for a balanced budget, reduction in government size/cost, and generally looking to reduce government payouts are the ones "whining" because they're losing entitlements? I think you have it backwards. They don't think anyone is entitled to education, housing, sustenance, and healthcare: they want you to work for it.

That is a pretty good analogy and description.....of the Democrats - whining about entitlements. The Republicans represent the New Aristocracy and protects their wealth. Nothing you said is an accurate description of the Tea Party though. Start doing your own thinking and stop sealing sound bites from everyone else and you won't present yourself as having no idea what you are talking about.

I think we have to admit that McCain does bare some resemblance to Smeagol.
I think the problem with the Tea Partiers is that they see it as being their way or nothing. I understand their perspective and conviction but I think the issue is that they want to do it ALL at once. No compromise, every vote they make must include everything they think has to be done for the next 20 years of government. I think the problem is if we do it their way the whole economy is going to come crashing down. People complain about government spending but then seem to forget that a large % of the US is employeed (directly or indirectly) by the government. You YANK that out all at once and I think we'll be reminiscing about the good old days of only 10% unemployment.

The lack of compromise is one thing but my issue with most if them is an apparent lack of sense. Yes we all hate raising taxes but they don't seem to understand simple economics where cutting costs can only do so much without increasing revenue.

We're seeing what was predicted two or three years ago. The Tea Party is poisonous to the Republicans, not the Democrats. It's pretty clear that Boehner is at maximum frustration level, and I think it's beginning to dawn on mainline and moderate Republicans that the Tea Party tail is now wagging the GOP dog. There's a level of hysterical irrationality about the Tea Party that is now coming into full view. They're not interested in governing at all.

I'm sure the White House has a long list of contingencies in place just like Clinton did when he was up against the Gingrich mob, and is probably quite content to watch the Republicans and the Tea Party wing battle it out. I think 2012 is pretty damned safe for him.

I think the Tea Party is upset that no one is actually cutting anything though. It's not like this is a legitimate plan that either side is presenting that puts us on a path to a balanced budget. Both plans don't even come close to balancing the budget within 10 years and still ad tons of money to the deficit and even the cuts that they do make are years down the road when there's no guarantee they happen. Personally, I'm a huge advocate for cuts. Even though I am a pure federalist and advocate any downsizi

And sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's not a band-aid, but a society. I know there is a fraction of you vocal keyboard commandos that would love to go back to the early 1800's, but it's not going to happen. If you actually hate this society so much, just move. We won't miss you.

We have to deal with it fast, but if you deal with it the TEA party way, what we'll end up is exactly what the US founding fathers rebelled against: A thin layer of rich aristocracy with poor peasants underneath them to shove around as they deem fit. This is essentially what you end up with if your solution is to reduce tax to next to nothing and thus take away the government's ability to actually govern. If you want that, ok. But unless you are one of the thin layer, I definitely doubt that you really want

The founding fathers had no problem with rich aristocracy: they WERE rich aristocracy. What they had a problem with was the unfettered power of unelected government and its intrusion into the everyday business of the common man.

And what, exactly, do you think is going to happen when a government with zero income tries to enforce the laws its passed in an effort to reign in the rich aristocracy that's trying to push around the middle and lower classes? How, with no money, do you think they're going to pay for the enforcement of the laws that are established to prevent the unelected corporations from exercising their unfettered power over the everyday business of the common man?

That's completely incorrect. The Democrats have been willing to compromise; Obama's facing a backlash among his own party for being too willing to compromise. If you've been following the news you know where the Democrats started and where they are now and can see what they've compromised on. The Republicans still refuse to compromise at all on taxes.
The trick to a healthy government is for the population to pay attention to what they do, don't just wave your hands vaguely in the air and say both parties are equally culpable.

Really? When? In fact, the Democrats haven't even proposed a single bill to correct this situation in either house. They just sit there and vote "No" to all options being presented without presenting one of their own. They are, in effect, refusing to cut spending, period. They want to raise the debt ceiling and taxes and not make any real cuts in spending. True to form - Tax-and-Spend-Democrats bankrupting this country, one election at a time.

People live on narratives, and this makes them susceptible to magic, that is the use of patterned sounds and images to alter their brain-states.
People say that it's too much to expect them not to do, that they are 'only human'...this is why I'm a trans-humanist.

I think a better analogy is, the Tea Party is like the Jedi in the Star Wars prequels.

For the most part, they are earnest and mean well but not too bright. In the end, they will win. And only then will they realize they've been working for the dark side the whole time. Only then will they realize the disastrous conclusion of their campaign.

And of course, by then it will be too late.

If it makes you feel any better, just like the younglings at Jedi HQ, the Tea Party folks will be the first up against the w

The Tea Party is the best thing that could happen to Democrats. It's their secret weapon. By the 2012 elections, the Republican party will be down to only a handful of nutcases that can pass their litmus test.

You think you have problems. I miss Carter, an engineer who may have been the last actual truthful president we ever had. Truth, however, doesn't win elections. We preferred the happytalk mythology of a has-been B-Actor in the beginning stages of Alzheimers who was little more than a shill for the financial industry in the person of Don Regan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Regan [wikipedia.org].

Tea Party, is just a revamp of the Religious Right. They kept the craziness and took God out of it. Figuring they can get others to join... It worked.

Palin was chosen because she was a Young, Woman who had a position high enough to carry the title and do the work as president... To counter balance Young Minority President Obama. Just to make sure if you voted for McCain you are not feeling bad about voting against a history changing moment.

The Tea Party is the biggest astroturf of all time, heavily funded and orchestrated by the Koch brothers. The only people who don't know this are the useful idiots who are members. The TP message is tailored to appeal to the politically naive, and it is working brilliantly: an army of idiots who think that the next time a project is behind schedule they should stop working on it and instead spend all their time agitating for senior management to change the company's articles of incorporation to include a

The end of the 2008 election gave us two good things: Obama in the White House, and McCain saying things that make sense again from time to time.

Yeah, I used to be a fan of McCain pre-election campaign. He used to be a sensible, moderate Republican. He seems to be very (VERY!) slowly moving back towards rational territory after his unfortunate excursion into fantasyland.